GUILTY OH - Alesha Bell, 18, body found burned, Roaming Shores, 23 July 2015

[JusticeWillBeServed]

From February:

Brooks sentenced to 30 years for murder of Alesha Bell, other offenses against women

James E. Brooks of Roaming Shores will be in prison for 30 years, including eight for the death of Warren teenager Alesha Bell.

Brooks pleaded guilty Tuesday in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court to charges of involuntary manslaughter and kidnapping of Bell, 18.

Brooks, 42, formerly of Warren, also pleaded guilty to gross abuse of Bell’s corpse and guilty to compelling women to engage in prostitution out of his rural home on U.S. Route 6 in Ashtabula County.

Sentencing provides no closure for Alesha's mom

For Tiffany Knepper, the nightmare of the disappearance of her daughter, Alesha Bell, began July 23, 2015, in the street a short distance from their home in the Palmyra Heights neighborhood.

It culminated Tuesday in the conviction of Brooks, 42, in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court in Jefferson for the involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping and gross abuse of a corpse of Bell, who was barely 18 when she went missing.

For Knepper, Brooks’ hearing, plea and sentencing to eight years in prison didn’t come close to providing closure.

The 18 months of searching for her daughter, helping police track down leads and hearing bad news about the prostitution, drug dealing and weapons operation Brooks ran out of his home on U.S. Route 6 in Roaming Shores kept hurting her and her family.

When negotiations between the Ashtabula County Prosecutor’s Office and Brooks finally produced a plea agreement, Knepper and her children made the trip to Jefferson last Tuesday. Brooks made a few statements that have left Knepper guessing at their meaning.

“‘It wasn’t what you think.’ He would say something else and then he would say that again,” Knepper said of Brooks. “He wanted to make it very clear that it wasn’t what we think.” Brooks also said maybe someday he would be able to talk about everything that happened.

Did it mean Alesha is still alive?

“What we know can’t be denied – her remains,” Knepper said of bones found in a burn pit on Brooks’ property that were matched to Bell’s DNA.

“She’s not here, so with [Brooks] saying that ... are you saying that’s not my daughter, and she is still out here somewhere?”

“I don’t know what what part [Brooks] means ‘isn’t what we think,’ but that’s what came to my head when [Brooks] said that.”

Knepper said a part of her still believes Alesha is alive.

“This whole situation from beginning to end has been unreal. It’s hard to believe I’m living it. I sleep on the couch because I wait for her to come home,” Knepper said of her daughter.